Enhancing the sustainable management of Senegalo-Mauritanian Aquifer System to ensure access to water for populations facing climate change (SMAS) PIF

This project will mainly focus on strengthening knowledge of the Senegal-Mauritanian aquifer as a whole with the development of a Transboundary Diagnostic analysis and a participative, inclusive multistakeholder process for the establishment of a Strategic Action Plan for the sustainable and efficient use of the aquifer’s resources. These TDA/SAP tools will support the regional governance framework for cooperative and sustainable management (science and hydrodiplomacy). This level of intervention will be the first on a regional scale for this particular water body and countries in the basin have repeatedly requested assistance to operationalize such an initiative. In this context, the 4 riparian countries had ocially mandated the Sahara and Sahel Observatory (OSS) in 2003 to draft a request for funding of such support. A rst draft was elaborated in 2004. Then, several nancial partners was approached with this concept note (2014-2015) such as the DDC-Suisse, the FFEM (French GEF), AfDB, Canadian Cooperation, etc. without success because of change of strategy or other internal factors. A “Writeshop” workshop was organized in May 2017 with the countries and resulted in the development of a project concept note entitled: “Master Plan for Development and Sustainable Management of Shared Water Resources in the Senegalo-Mauritanian Basin: Satisfaction of water needs / Adaptation to climate change in the region”. The AfDB has maninfested interest in may 2021 in supporting the Master plan development of the SASM.